Category: Content management & strategy (Page 97 of 468)

This category includes editorial and news blog posts related to content management and content strategy. For older, long form reports, papers, and research on these topics see our Resources page.

Content management is a broad topic that refers to the management of unstructured or semi-structured content as a standalone system or a component of another system. Varieties of content management systems (CMS) include: web content management (WCM), enterprise content management (ECM), component content management (CCM), and digital asset management (DAM) systems. Content management systems are also now widely marketed as Digital Experience Management (DEM or DXM, DXP), and Customer Experience Management (CEM or CXM) systems or platforms, and may include additional marketing technology functions.

Content strategy topics include information architecture, content and information models, content globalization, and localization.

For some historical perspective see:

https://gilbane.com/gilbane-report-vol-8-num-8-what-is-content-management/

Marketing technology landscape explosion and CMS evolution

January 19, 2014 / Frank Gilbane / 0 Comments

The most popular and pervasive meme at the recent Gilbane Conference on Content and the Digital Experience was certainly “marketing technologist”. There were many other topic streams but none quite so critical to marketings’, and marketers’, future (and not only marketers, but that’s another story).

One of the three questions we posed to our speakers prior to the conference was, Is there a “Marketing Technologist” role in your organization or in organizations you know of? Should there be? What should their responsibilities be? A number of speakers, including Scott Brinker, provided answers in our speaker spotlight series. Scott also delivered the keynote What is a Marketing Technologist? where he shared a graphic he had created of the marketing technology landscape that illustrates what a marketing technologist has to deal with. Last week he published the new substantially enhanced version below that is now a must-have reference tool.

What makes Scott’s latest version dramatically more valuable for marketers and IT, or anyone involved in digital experience strategies and architectures is the organizational structure he added. As Scott says this is not perfect or the final word. But the six technology categories and structure are certainly a courageous stake in the ground.

Be sure to read Scott’s full post, where he explains what he has done in more detail, provides links to high resolution .png and .pdf versions of the marketing technology landscape super graphic 3.0, links to additional resources, and answers the many comments he has received.

Web content management

Scott’s new landscape also provides some food for thought regarding a second major theme at the conference, which we included in another of the three questions for the speaker spotlights: Do you think “web content management” should be the hub of digital experience management implementations? If so, should it have a new name to match an expanded role? If not, what should be at the center? A slightly different way to think about this is to ask where the center of gravity is in marketing technology architectures.

Scott places WCM and all its variations (CEM, CXM, DXM, etc.) in the Marketing Backbone Platform category. This is surely where it belongs, but it raises lots of questions about just how it ties in with or ties together all the other categories and the variety of technologies within them. And of course there is overlap and competition for the center-of-gravity crown between e-commerce, CRM, and marketing automation platforms, though some of them may not realize it yet. This will be a very interesting game to watch in 2014 (and certainly one we’ll be addressing in this year’s conference). See Scott’s thoughts on this in his CMS Wire post on 9 Key Facts about Web CMS in the Marketing Technology Landscape.

Gilbane Conference resources and coverage

December 16, 2013 / Frank Gilbane / 0 Comments

Misty has been collecting posts about this year’s Gilbane Conference. If you see any we are missing please let us know via comment or email. You can also check tweets at #gilbane, or via Topsy, find conference presentations at http://gilbaneconference.com/Presentations.aspx, and see speaker spotlights.

Media Sponsors

CMS Myth
• http://www.cmsmyth.com/2013/12/best-bets-at-gilbane-2013-which-sessions-ill-be-attending/
• http://www.cmsmyth.com/2013/12/when-will-end-users-overwhelming-love-their-cms/
• http://www.cmsmyth.com/2013/12/how-marriott-is-rethinking-content-delivery-across-70-countries-and-3800-hotels/
• added 12/17/13: http://www.cmsmyth.com/2013/12/redefining-success-for-web-cms-project-teams/

eContent
• http://www.econtentmag.com/Articles/News/News-Item/Context-at-Gilbane-93598.htm
• http://www.econtentmag.com/Articles/News/News-Item/Content-Strategists-vs.-the-CMS-at-Gilbane-93615.htm
• http://www.econtentmag.com/Articles/News/News-Item/Content-Management-and-Your-Mobile-Strategy-at-Gilbane-93637.htm
• http://www.econtentmag.com/Articles/News/News-Item/The-Internet-of-Things-Comes-to-Life-at-Gilbane-93641.htm
• added 1/13/14: http://www.econtentmag.com/Articles/Column/Content-Throwdown/The-Rise-of-the-Marketing-Technologist-93907.htm

Fierce Content Management
• http://www.fiercecontentmanagement.com/story/marketing-technologist-could-act-bridge-between-cmo-cio/2013-12-03
• http://www.fiercecontentmanagement.com/story/multichannel-delivery-means-its-time-separate-content-creation-presentation/2013-12-03

Blogs

4 hoteliers
• http://www.4hoteliers.com/features/article/8056?awsb_c=rss&awsb_k=xfeed

Accidental Taxonomist
• http://accidental-taxonomist.blogspot.com/2013/12/taxonomy-governance.html

Bluebill Advisors
• added 1/9/14: http://bluebillinc.com/2014/01/findability-issues-impact-everything-work-related/
• http://bluebillinc.com/2013/12/beyond-customer-experience-management/

Chief Marketing Technologist
• http://chiefmartec.com/2013/12/marketing-technologist-neo-marketing-matrix/

Citeworld
• http://www.citeworld.com/social/22751/sap-social-media-streamlined
• http://www.citeworld.com/consumerization/22747/customer-attention-challenge

Creative Virtual
• http://www.creativevirtual.com/blog/?p=821

Curata
• http://www.curata.com/blog/content-marketing-event-gilbane-conference-2013-wrap-up/
• http://www.curata.com/blog/content-marketing-technology-wrap-up-gilbane-2013-video/

Globalization Partners
• added 12/19/13: http://blog.globalizationpartners.com/insights-into-gilbane-conference.aspx

Engaging Times
• http://engagingtimes.com/battle-ready-offer-global-customer-experience-notes-gilbane-frontline/

I-Cubed
• added 12/17/13:

Jeff Cutler
• http://jeffcutler.com/social-media-blogs/gilbane-conference-2013-content-marketing-track-qa-session-review/#.UqdJXvRDs8w
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6HyjzloD3U

Marketing Think
• http://marketingthink.com/sap-got-social-media-act-together/

The Parallax View – Winter 2014
• added 3/4/14: http://www.parallax.ca/?page_id=4665

Zia Consulting
• http://www.ziaconsulting.com/blog/gilbane-conference-2013-recap/

Other

Seen.co
• added 12/17/13: http://seen.co/event/gilbane-conference-2013-boston-ma-2013-527/

Creating the Global User Experience

December 12, 2013 / Marc Strohlein / 0 Comments

I was gratified to have the opportunity to do a presentation on the Global User Experience at the Gilbane Conference, as well as moderating several sessions in the technology track. For those that missed my presentation, I’ve posted a short recap here and a further exploration of the topic.

A common theme throughout the conference sessions was digital experiences and the role of mobile, web, content management, and other technologies in providing superior experiences to customers. That’s to be expected as creating superior customer experiences is a strategic imperative for most organizations, and also the current focus of most content software solutions in the marketplace, including content management systems. What is often overlooked (and the subject of my presentation) is that the CMS doesn’t just support delivery of the customer experience—it also has to support the behind the scenes players that create the customer experience.

Providing a compelling digital user experience is a complex undertaking no matter what the nature of the business or enterprise. It requires a range of talents including authoring, curation, story telling, design, and development, testing and deployment—and the tools to effectively support those diverse skill sets.

The heart of that experience is a modern CMS; in fact, delivering compelling digital user experiences is virtually impossible without one. But selecting the right CMS is challenging—after all, there are many to choose from and it can be difficult to differentiate products—most promise to deliver superior digital user experiences.

But one thing that is often overlooked is that creating great customer experiences requires an orchestrated approach by the “other users” of the CMS: editors and developers. It also requires the integration of tools and content that may reside outside of the CMS. In other words, the quality of the customer experience is directly related to the quality of the experience that a CMS provides to content creators, developers, and integrators.

Digging a bit deeper, content creators are actually a diverse collection of roles and skill sets, not just authors and editors. What’s common across those roles is that many are not full time professional content authors, which makes the quality of the content creator experience vitally important. Content creators want to use tools that are easy and familiar with a short learning curve. Most of all, they want to be able to focus on telling stories and creating great content, not mastering complex tools.

Developers, like content creators, also value ease of use and familiarity. They want to use tools, languages, and frameworks that they are familiar with and that work well in the technology environment in which they live. Most importantly, they want and need to be involved in the process of selecting a CMS—failure to include IT will lead to increased time to operation, and a risk that the chosen solution won’t work well in the enterprise’s IT environment.

The integrator experience involves the developers, partners, and vendors that have to integrate the CMS with enterprise systems and applications (the installed base), but also with solutions from other vendors that help provide the customer experience. If integration is difficult, it will take more time or, worse yet, not be done. Poorly done integration drains energy, productivity, and innovation leading to later, less desirable results.

The solution to providing the global user experience is a well-architected CMS that provides comfortable and easy-to-use core functionality while easily integrating with enterprise and third party tools and applications. The selection of that CMS requires a concerted and cooperative effort on the part of all stakeholders that will ultimately use the content management system. Selection of a CMS is not a technology decision, it’s a strategic business decision that warrants the time, effort, and participation of all business and technology stakeholders in order to render the best decision.

Beyond Customer Experience Management: What Your CMS Really Needs to Deliver

December 12, 2013 / Marc Strohlein / 1 Comment

Selecting a new or replacement content management system CMS is one of the most strategic technology decisions you can make. Why? Because customers and prospects expect personalized, engaging, dynamic, and high quality experiences and will leave if they don’t find them.

Selecting the right CMS is important because it is a primary tool in providing those experiences and the hub that connects and drives many of the components that make up customer experience management. This post is based on a white paper entitled “Beyond Customer Experience: What Your CMS Really Needs to Deliver, “ which was also the subject of a recent presentation I did at the Gilbane Conference. You can download the white paper here.

Providing a personalized and seamless experience to customers across myriad devices, touch points, and stages in the relationship is a big challenge; one with which many organizations struggle. A recent Bain & Company survey found that while 80% of surveyed executives believe their companies are delivering a great customer experience, only 8% of their customers agree.

One reason they struggle is that customer experience is only part of the equation, specifically, the goal. The other parts of the equation that achieve that goal are content creator experience, developer experience, and integrator experience-in total, the “global user experience.” While those are “behind the scenes players, they create and shape the customer experience.

Great customer experiences are predicated on the effectiveness with which a CMS provides those other experiences—in effect, a well-designed CMS inspires better performance on the part of content creators and developers, yielding customer experiences that deliver more business impact. It also allows integration of familiar and new tools to enhance the productivity and effectiveness of content creators and developers. Shown as an equation, the global user experience would look like the diagram below:

Key to achieving a superior customer experience is the ability for content creators, marketers, and developers to focus on the experience itself, not the mechanics of producing it. That requires a mature CMS solution that provides a balanced set of tools and capabilities for content creators, developers, and integrators. That, in turn, requires a coordinated CMS selection process amongst all of those stakeholders that emphasizes not only the individual experiences, but the collective experience as well.

As we noted at the top of this post, selecting a CMS is a strategic decision-the CMS solution that provides the right global user experience is a growth engine that helps power the success of any business or firm-the right strategic decision.

Speaker Spotlight: Karl Wirth – Real time and relevant content

December 6, 2013 / Clea Durrell / 0 Comments

In another installment of Speaker Spotlight, we posed a couple of our frequently asked questions to speaker Karl Wirth, CEO and Co-Founder of Evergage. We’ve included his answers here. Be sure to see additional Speaker Spotlights from our upcoming conference.

Speaker Spotlight: Karl Wirth

Co-Founder and CEO

Evergage

What is the best overall strategy for delivering content to web, multiple mobile, and upcoming digital channels? What is the biggest challenge? Development and maintenance cost? Content control? Brand management? Technology expertise?

I believe the best overall strategy is delivering relevant content to audiences. Thanks to Big Data and technology, organizations now have the ability to serve their users and visitors dynamic, personalized content, based off of their behaviors and actions. Increasing relevancy and interacting with people in real time will capture attention, drive engagement, and ultimately increase conversions.

Real-time behavior-based personalization:

Is always relevant
Drives customer engagement
Compels action
Increases conversion rates

The biggest challenges that we have observed are:

Lack of resources – a customer success manager or marketer may not have the time to utilize a new technology
Budget constraints – organizations may not have budgeted for a new marketing tool
Content control – content may be managed by different departments creating inconsistencies and ownership confusion

The truth is that the days of static and irrelevant content are over. In our customer-driven world, organizations should invest to get to know their customers and tailor content to their actions.

Catch Up with Karl at Gilbane

Product Labs

K. From static to real-time web marketing in 45 minutes
Wednesday, December 4: 3:30 p.m. – 4:15 p.m.

Find out more about this session and our other conference sessions here.

Be sure to follow Karl @Evergage

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Speaker Spotlight: Pawan Deshpande – You need a marketing technologist and a marketing strategist

November 30, 2013 / Clea Durrell / 0 Comments

In another installment of Speaker Spotlight, we posed a couple of our frequently asked questions to speaker Pawan Deshpande, Founder and CEO of Curata. We’ve included his answers here. Be sure to see additional Speaker Spotlights from our upcoming conference.

Speaker Spotlight: Pawan Deshpande

Founder and CEO

Curata

Is there a “Marketing Technologist” role in your organization or in organizations you know of? Should there be? What should their responsibilities be?

There is no doubt that marketing technology is here to stay. Some analyst firms have even predicted that marketing’s technology budget will one day outpace that of the IT department. (i.e., Forrester) In order to manage the increased adoption and leverage of technology across the marketing organization, as well as integration with other functions, CMOs will need to put in place a marketing technologist role. Two questions may come to mind when reading this recommendation:

Isn’t that the role of marketing operations?; and
Isn’t that the role of the IT department?

The marketing operations (MO) role first developed approximately 8-10 years ago, as covered by IDC’s CMO Advisory Service, (i.e., Rise of the Marketing Operations Function). The MO role was developed in response to the need for a process-oriented marketer who would be able to apply greater rigor to marketing’s investment management, demand generation process, performance measurement process, and overall technology. Although this role proved highly valuable in the short-term for change management, the rapid growth of marketing technology and the need for greater marketing accountability proved too much to bear for one function. More importantly, each marketing area needed to have its own level of expertise and rigor in process and technology.

Some marketing organizations attempted to increase their dependence on the IT department. However, this strategy proved detrimental since marketing technology was rarely a priority for IT teams, and IT lacks the in depth understanding of the marketing process. Better organizations tapped into the power of SaaS solutions to bypass IT, however, this still left a very disjointed marketing technology strategy. Enter the marketing technologist.

Marketing technology touches every part of marketing’s “supply chain”; from awareness building (e.g., social media, content marketing) to demand generation (e.g., lead processing, lead nurturing) to sales enablement (e.g., content management and delivery to sales and partners). Having a marketing technologist in larger organizations provides the opportunity to develop and deploy a more connected marketing strategy across the organization. This individual/team will be responsible for managing the technology associated with the different elements of marketing, as well as collaborating with the following teams: marketing-dedicated folks within IT, sales operations, and finance. (i.e., at global, regional and business unit levels). Specific examples where this role could add value include:

Developing a marketing technology roadmap across all functional areas (current, 1 year and 3 year plan);
Continuing to refine the demand management process (e.g., integration of marketing automation with sales’ pipeline process/technology); and
Taking on the new challenge of supporting content marketing from a technology perspective. (e.g., content creation, content curation, content lifecycle management).

What is the best overall strategy for delivering content to web, multiple mobile, and upcoming digital channels? What is the biggest challenge? Development and maintenance cost? Content control? Brand management? Technology expertise?

If you ask any large company CMO about their content inventory, they will quickly tell you that they have too much content. A conversation with the same company’s digital marketing team (i.e., the team that delivers content to blogs, microsites, newsletters, web sites and social media channels) will reveal that they don’t have enough content. Herein lies the greatest challenge for delivering digital content: Putting the process and technology in place for disparate parts of an organization to collaborate on developing relevant and high quality for their audience; and getting this content to them in the right time, place, and format to drive greater engagement. Addressing this challenge will require the development of two new roles in marketing: a senior level marketing strategist to develop and deploy a content management process (e.g., VP Content Strategy) and a marketing technologist.

Catch Up with Pawan at Gilbane

Track C: Content, Marketing, and the Customer Experience

C10: Content Strategies: Customer Experience, Competition, Content Marketing and Curation
Wednesday, December 4: 2:00 p.m. – 3:20 p.m.

Find out more about this session and our other conference sessions here.

Be sure to follow Pawan @TweetsFromPawan

Speaker Spotlight: Irina Guseva – Neither WCM nor experience management new

November 30, 2013 / Clea Durrell / 0 Comments

In another installment of Speaker Spotlight, we posed one of our frequently asked questions to speaker Irina Guseva, Principal Analyst at Real Story Group. We’ve included her answers here. Be sure to see additional Speaker Spotlights from our upcoming conference.

Speaker Spotlight: Irina Guseva

Principal Analyst

Real Story Group

Do you think “web content management” should be the hub of digital experience management implementations? If so, should it have a new name to match an expanded role? If not, what should be at the center?

Web content management has seen a great deal of evolution since its inception in the early-mid-1990s. Experience management is not a new discipline either, but has garnered heightened attention in the recent few years. The question here is not the chicken-egg type. The question here is having a solid strategy for managing customer experiences (online and offline) first and foremost. The next step is to support this strategy with appropriate and carefully selected technology that matches your needs: be it WCM, DAM, or Digital Marketing tools.

Catch Up with Irina at Gilbane

Track C: Content, Marketing, and the Customer Experience

C3: Stump the Web Content Management Consultant!
Tuesday, December 3: 4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.

and

Post-Conference Workshops

Workshop A. Insider’s Guide to Selecting Web Content & Experience Management (WCM) Technology
Thursday, December 5: 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Find out more about this session and our other conference sessions here.

Be sure to follow Irina @realstorygroup

Speaker Spotlight: Pete Sheinbaum – Not “web content management” but “digital content management”

November 30, 2013 / Clea Durrell / 0 Comments

In another installment of Speaker Spotlight, we posed a couple of our frequently asked questions to speaker Pete Sheinbaum, CEO of LinkSmart. We’ve included his answers here. Be sure to see additional Speaker Spotlights from our upcoming conference.

Speaker Spotlight: Pete Sheinbaum

CEO

LinkSmart

Do you think “web content management” should be the hub of digital experience management implementations? If so, should it have a new name to match an expanded role? If not, what should be at the center?

I strongly disagree that web content management should be the hub of experience management implementations. The reason I feel strongly about this is that the “web” may or may not be the hub of the digital “user” experience.

When creating a new role, job function or area of responsibility around the digital experience, it’s important for publishers to identify and carefully map the user experience to see where its hub actually lies. It may or not be web centric.

For example, where does the hub for a digital experience for cooking live? What about the hub for exercising, travel or shopping? In each of these digital experiences, the hub is far away from the web and more so mobile (although yes, people can access the web from a mobile device, but the user experience on a mobile device should be much different than a lean-forward desktop experience).

As such, I wouldn’t give the name “web content management” to the role, but I would offer an alternate with the term “digital content management.” And the owner should be well versed in how digital content and experiences should be delivered on multiple devices, in different geo locations, at different times of day. By focusing on the digital user experience, and less on the web content experience, the center and focus of this role should be clear.

Catch Up with Pete at Gilbane

Track P: Digital Strategies for Publishing and Media

P3. Content Optimization for Publishers – Two Under-appreciated Approaches
Tuesday, December 3: 4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Find out more about this session and our other conference sessions here.

Be sure to follow Pete and LinkSmart on Twitter @sheinbaum and @linksmart

Category: Content management & strategy (Page 97 of 468)

Marketing technology landscape explosion and CMS evolution

Web content management

Gilbane Conference resources and coverage

Media Sponsors

Blogs

Other

Creating the Global User Experience

Beyond Customer Experience Management: What Your CMS Really Needs to Deliver

Speaker Spotlight: Karl Wirth – Real time and relevant content

What is the best overall strategy for delivering content to web, multiple mobile, and upcoming digital channels? What is the biggest challenge? Development and maintenance cost? Content control? Brand management? Technology expertise?

Catch Up with Karl at Gilbane

Speaker Spotlight: Pawan Deshpande – You need a marketing technologist and a marketing strategist

Is there a “Marketing Technologist” role in your organization or in organizations you know of? Should there be? What should their responsibilities be?

What is the best overall strategy for delivering content to web, multiple mobile, and upcoming digital channels? What is the biggest challenge? Development and maintenance cost? Content control? Brand management? Technology expertise?

Catch Up with Pawan at Gilbane

Speaker Spotlight: Irina Guseva – Neither WCM nor experience management new

Do you think “web content management” should be the hub of digital experience management implementations? If so, should it have a new name to match an expanded role? If not, what should be at the center?

Catch Up with Irina at Gilbane

Speaker Spotlight: Pete Sheinbaum – Not “web content management” but “digital content management”

Do you think “web content management” should be the hub of digital experience management implementations? If so, should it have a new name to match an expanded role? If not, what should be at the center?

Catch Up with Pete at Gilbane

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